[Nettime-bold] Re: Bosnian Croats lodge complaint against OSCE at European rights court

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

 I don't know whether all those countries had anything to do with 
the changes of electoral law in Bosnia. But the law WAS changed. 
And it was changed just before the elections. And I don't say 
'rigged' - but changed - ostensibly to prevent the continuation of the 
gridlock in the Bosnian political process. And the result was that 
the HDZ candidates - that had the support of the voters, and that 
would be elected to the upper chamber before the change, were not 
elected to the upper chamber. We all remember the Jelavic 
protests after that. Obviously, the change was politically desirable 
by OSCE, but was it legal to do so? To what extent the other 
European countries should be allowed to tailor Bosnian politics? 
How does this figure with the Bosnian sovereignty? Those 
questions are legitimate and beg for an answer. I think that bringing 
the issue to the court is the right and civilized way of dealing with it.
ivo

Date sent:      	Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:17:47 EDT
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From:           	Mike Baresic <GRABOVCAN@AOL.COM>
Subject:        	Bosnian Croats lodge complaint against OSCE at European rights
             	court
To:             	JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

Associated Press, September 26, 2001 Wednesday

Bosnian Croats lodge complaint at European rights court over elections

DATELINE: STRASBOURG, France

Four Bosnian Croat women filed a complaint Wednesday at the European Court of
Human Rights against 38 European nations alleging they rigged elections to
the Bosnian parliament last year.

The women claim members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe altered electoral laws just ahead of the November 2000 vote to deny
seats to the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ. Their lawyers
said the changes denied the women and other Bosnian Croats their right to
free elections enshrined in the European Human Rights Convention.

"The OSCE states intentionally disenfranchised the applicants and other
similarly situated Croats," said the application submitted by the women's
Croatian lawyers.

They claimed that although the HDZ gained 90 percent of Bosnia's Croat vote,
the rule changes allowed members of the country's Muslim community to select
Croat delegates to upper chamber of parliament, ensuring seats allocated for
Croats did not go to the HDZ

The lawyers representing Delfa Bozic-Blazevic, Malina Kvasina, Zdenka Tomic
and Ljubica Medic said that the OSCE nations "drafted election rules
specifically and intentionally designed to rig the elections of Nov. 11,
2000."

Officials at the European court said it was the first time a case had been
taken against so many nations. They said it would probably take at least six
months before European judges would decide if the case was admissible

Under the peace agreement that ended Bosnia's war in 1995, the OSCE was given
wide responsibility for supervising elections in Bosnia.

The nations cited in the complaint are Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and Britain.


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